Fiction With a Dark Side

Hurt Me So Good by Joely Sue Burkhart

Full Disclosure: I didn’t pay a penny for this pretty. Also, I helped beta read it so, you know, I might be just a tad biased.

The long awaited second book in the Connagher series will be released on October 5th, 2010. But because I’ve been such a good girl this year, Santa decided to drop it into my inbox early.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Victor Connagher is the sexiest, meanest closet sadist in Dallas. No, Texas. NO, America. Perhaps even the World. He’s also CEO of a kinky cable channel that caters to those that like a little something extra with their Vanilla. And while he’ll be the first to admit he’s one mean son of a bitch, Victor lives in fear. Of himself.

Torn with guilt over the one-and only one-time he lost control of his inner Dom with his now EX-fiance, Victor’s hellbent on keeping his inner sadist locked away for good. It almost became easy…until sexy Submissive Shiloh Holmes walks into his office with an offer he can’t refuse. And it doesn’t even involve her stripping naked and stretching herself over his desk for a whippin’ with his wicked riding crop….

Well, not yet anyway.

Shiloh’s concocted the perfect project for VCONN’s upcoming season, not to mention the perfect way to wind herself into Victor’s clutches and break through his formidable control- a BDSM reality show. America’s Next Top sub…with herself as one of his competing subs. After all, can’t be Top sub without a Top dom, and with her nearly limitless tolerance for pain coupled with his insatiable need to dole it out, they’re about to take cable TV to a whole new level.

Week after week, as Shiloh fearlessly challenges the real Victor to come out of hiding, he realizes his past mistake was only a blow to his pride. If he loses Shiloh, he could lose his heart.

Warning: Explicit sex, BDSM, reality television, a very reluctant Dom, an audacious sub willing to do anything to win for him, and one very wicked riding crop.

No body makes my reader’s heart sting like Joely Sue Burkhart. I’m not usually one to enjoy contemporaries but with Joely’s quirky sense of humor and passion for the forbidden or the politically incorrect, I get lost in the magic every time.

Hurt Me So Good is a sweltering hot read even without the mention of crops, whips and collars. The passion between Shiloh and Victor is addictive and I do believe I’m going to miss reading about a heroine who isn’t afraid to talk dirty. She’s not a doormat. She’s not a shrinking violet or the epitome of fragility. She’s a damned proud Submissive and she totally won my heart.

This book is unique in that, it really is Victor’s book. He has the most at stake and it was sort of refreshing to see a man struggling to come to terms with who he is and what he wants sexually. Shiloh constantly taunts him into accepting who he is because she knows if he can’t do that then he’ll never be able to accept her.

Now don’t get me wrong, the “kinky shit”-as Victor so puts it-only stood to make the book more entertaining. The BDSM reality show scenes are artist and reader crack. Although one of the Dom’s competing for top Master-Patrick’s- kinks made me shudder and not in the fun way. Though, judging by the other character’s reactions to it, I think this was more than intentional. Different strokes and all that but, yeesh. Wouldn’t be me.

Now if you’ve been reading my reviews you’ll know that I always have a side character that steals my heart, sometimes even more than the main couple/characters. Except, Joely made that extremely difficult with this book. Not only is Shiloh just so damn awesome, but I had three, count ’em, THREE characters I was emotionally invested in.

Two I can’t mention because it would ruin a subplot (my FAVORITE subplot of the book!), so I guess Mal will have to take the crown for this one. She’s used it, being Dallas’ meanest Mistress after all. I can’t help hoping she finds her own HEA one day, much in the way that I’d hoped Masson, Conn’s best friend and drunken Mathematician from Dear Sir, I’m Yours, would.

Also? Kinda slightly off topic. This is the first time the excerpt at the back of the book managed to hook me. I so need to e-mail Ms. Matthews and see if I can talk her into getting my hands on Pink Buttercream Frosting for review.

I’ll post a link to all the wonderful places you can pick up a copy of Hurt Me So Good when it releases on October 5th. For now, stop by Joely Sue Burkhart’s website for updates and even the free teaser prequel, Lie to You.